Back to December
by sonicstardust
Summary: Set after their days at Hollywood Arts, during college. Months after breaking up with him, Jade calls Beck to meet up and talk things over, conjuring flashbacks to that pivotal meeting in December.
1. Now

My hands are shaking, but muscle memory is intact, and my fingers nimbly find his name in my phone's contact list. I've spent far too much time just deciding to do this, to waste any more time. The droning dial tone brings a gnawing anxiety into my stomach as I wait. I wonder if he's erased my number and won't know who is calling. If he hasn't deleted me, I wonder if he'll see my name and not pick up. By the third ring I'm so full of doubts and second guesses that I'm almost hoping he won't. The ringing stops, and is followed by silence. To save my pride, I assume the call was dropped.

"Jade?"

I almost choke on my surprise at hearing him speak. It's literally been months, but his voice in my ear is still familiar. It should be comforting, but his resigned tone sets me on edge.

"Beck," I manage to reply, "hey."

Another pause.

"Hey." He responds.

Choosing my words is like pulling teeth out of my own skull.

"Can I…Can you…Can we meet up?" I swallow hard. The worst he can do is say no, but I know it will still hurt.

"Why?" he asks, sounding tired. Well, it's not a rejection.

I shut my eyes and let out the breath that I realize I've been holding in. I regain my voice.

"Just to talk - is that okay?"

He takes a second, it seems, to mull things over. In all honesty, in his position, I would too. Finally, he consents.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay. When?"

I'm getting braver by the second. In my throat I can feel my pulse racing. Now, I want to see him now.

I can't hold it back. It's coming up like a sort of word vomit.

"Is now alright?" I ask hastily.

I'm sure he can sense my eagerness.

"Now?" He muses, "Now is…good."


	2. Going Back

Concentrate: Steering, speed, traffic signals. As my little car coasts along – radio off, road noise muffled by the volume of my own thoughts – my brain insists on going back to that day when I must have lost my mind. That's what I tell myself, anyway. I had to be temporarily insane, to do what I did.

No, I shake it off. It's time to face reality; I did it because I was selfish, and angry, and scared. All those feelings seemed to have legitimate causes at the time. In the here and now, I'd do anything to change it.

Go back to August. Once upon a time we were so happy, and hopeful. We both had our plans, and fully intended to stick with each other throughout it all. Too bad our good intentions weren't enough to pull us through in one piece.

Post-graduation, Beck was immediately scouted for a small time cable drama series that was filming a few hours north of LA. I decided to fine tune my filmmaking skills at a local university, hoping to find inspiration in my solitude. It only took a month or two for the crushing loneliness to set in. I'd about had enough when we were reduced to phone tag, and trying to find time to see each other between my classes and his shooting schedule. Weeks went by.

Then, oh then came the day. Christmas break. I found myself so unbearably tired of the long stretches of silence and the harrowing fear that he'd found someone new. Normally I shied away from family and festivities, but I had nothing else. I was at my mother's house when Beck called me and told me to come outside. There he was, with a smile on his face and a bouquet in his hand. He had been so sweet, to bring me black roses. I closed the door behind me.


	3. Intuition

The park. Why the hell did we decide to meet at the park? It's April now, but I still find myself shivering as I sit in my car. Dusk is quickly sweeping over the area – the oncoming dark seemingly reinforces the chill. I pull my sweater tighter around my body, and get out of the vehicle, craning my neck to see if Beck is there yet. Still hoping to find him, or at least to occupy my mind, I walk up a grassy hill toward a wooden gazebo that looms out of the darkness. Peeling paint and curling vines – the structure seems to offer scant shelter from the breeze.

Then I realize he's already there, waiting, sitting on the railing and leaning his back against one of the columns. We've always had this sort of intuition, an ability to find one another without trying. He hasn't seen me yet. I stay still and quiet, biting my lip and listening to the rustling of the wind in the trees.

Back a few months, to December; I couldn't return his warm greeting. I'd been listening to those gnawing, doubtful thoughts for far too long. He kissed my cheek.

"I can't believe it's been so long. I missed you so much."

His sweet smile was too much for me to bear. It hurt too much to know that the way we were was completely okay with him.

"I tried to call you this morning but my phone was going haywire while I was driving through the mountains. I have so much to tell—"

"Beck, I can't do this anymore." My voice cut through his earnest excitement.

"What? Jade—"

The bouquet of roses hardly made a sound as I dropped them to the ground and backed away. Beck reached for my shoulder, but I pulled away further, my back against the cool surface of my door.

"I'm sorry."


	4. Reservations

Snap to the present; Beck does a small jump down from the railing, onto the grass, and meets me at the door of the structure. He keeps back a bit. He smiles, but it's not the one I remember loving so much. Without speaking, he gestures for me to walk ahead of him up the few steps into the gazebo. The wood groans and protests under our feet, but remains sturdy.

My arms are folded; his hands are in his pockets. We both stand facing each other, yet reserved. I know I don't deserve to have him here, ready to listen to what I'm about to say. But then, he's always been this way, ready to be the bigger person.

December: My eyes were stinging with unwelcome tears, and I was trying to make this go quickly so the pain wouldn't last, like pulling off a Band-aid.

His hand, which had been in his pocket moments before, was balled up in a fist around something small.

A glint of gold between his fingers, and my stomach felt like I had just plummeted ten stories.

With eyes on the ground, his voice was quiet, and wavered almost imperceptibly as he spoke.

"I wanted to tell you something, Jade. It's probably not worth anything now, because I know you, and I know that once you get something in your head, you're going to stick by it, because if you don't, you'll go crazy." As he said those last words, he looked me in the eye, and I swear a look has never caused me so much pain.

"We wrapped the show today. I wanted to surprise you. I'm moving back to LA in a week. I guess it doesn't make a difference now. I'm not your problem anymore."

I never thought he'd give me up without a fight, but I think he didn't want to hurt anymore either.

Now he stands in front of me as that April breeze stirs around us, his gaze hard and unreadable.


	5. Insomniac Dreaming

I push through my anxiety.

"Thanks for meeting me. How have you been?" My words don't sound like mine. I want things to be like they were, as impossible as that is. Apologies have always been extremely difficult for me – I hope he can see that I'm trying.

Beck nods slowly. "I've been okay. You?"

"Same," I sigh, though I know we're both lying, "school is kicking my ass."

"I wish I could say the same. I'm just waiting for the next job to come through." The corner of his mouth twitches into what could be the start of a smile.

In reality, it's really not just school that's killing me; I've developed insomnia of the worst kind. It's the constant feeling of being beaten down, always tired, but unable sleep. I think it's my mind's way of punishing me, by never turning off, never letting me forget what happened, and thinking of how I could have made things different. The guilt builds up inside me.

"I was wrong." I admit bluntly, rejecting the pride that has always set my priorities askew. "I'd understand completely if after this you never want to talk to me again."

My words are rushing from my mouth now, nearly stumbling over one another. "I wanted you to know…I wanted to say…I'm trying to make things okay."

Beck's sad eyes are almost too much for me to bear. I know to him I'm probably just pouring salt into the wound, making him feel it all over again. But he exhales a long breath,

"I know, Jade, I know."

Does he know? Can he see how much I'm vying for a way to get through to him, to prove to him that I'd be better this time, how I wouldn't let my fears and inhibitions get in the way? I'd show him, if only he'd let me. I give a shudder as the evening chill hits me again, and the tears begin silently overflowing from my unwilling eyes.

"I didn't realize how easily you would let me go. I thought you would at least argue with me." I venture, wiping my eyes on my sleeve in a less than elegant manner.

"I'm not a beggar, Jade. It's not my fault if you didn't get what you wanted." From his tone, the words aren't meant to cut deep, but they do.

"All I wanted was you!" I choke. "Yeah it might have been selfish and childish, but I wanted you back with me for good, or nothing at all!"

He closes his eyes, as if trying to push back his own tears, and speaks as if his throat is tight.

"I was always going to come back, Jade. Always."


	6. Consequence

I'm fully crying now. I remember how I used to feel so self conscious at showing my emotions, even around Beck. Now I just can't help it. I put my hands over my face and try to keep my breathing even.

He's taking things in stride, as he always does.

"I didn't even understand why you broke it off, and now you want me to take you back?" He asks quietly, simply.

Deep breaths Jade, I tell myself.

"No," – my brain screams yes – "I'm not a beggar either, Beck." I swallow a sob, finally managing to control myself. "I know I made the wrong choice. I loved you so much, but I ruined it. I just wanted to say…I'm so, so sorry." My voice cracks during my last words, betraying just how desperately broken I feel.

I wait for him to speak, but he doesn't. He stares at his shoes, or the cracks in the floorboards.

I'm done. I can't stay any longer here, with my tears and his silence; the consequences of how once upon a time, a flighty and angry girl thought the boy she loved was too wonderful and perfect to ever stay with her, so she smashed their love to pieces. After that disastrous day, if he had reasons to still want me, it would only be a matter of time before I trampled them all over again.

"I don't know why I thought this was a good idea. Goodbye, Beck." I mutter, and I'm turning away for what I suppose will be the last time.

This time I'm not expecting him to stop me, to grab my shoulder, to make me look in his eyes and see that his tears mirror my own. But he does, and I do.

I lower my eyes, embarrassed and out of sorts. In a moment of déjà vu, I spy a flickering glimpse of gold in his hand – the one that isn't clutching onto my arm.

Our eyes lock again. He lets go of me, keeping me there with only his eyes.


	7. Possibility

"Jade, don't you dare leave me again. Give me a minute to talk. You owe me that much."

I decide that it would be out of line for me to point out that he was the one who walked away without a fight last time. But maybe it was my fault if he didn't have any fight left in him. He seems to be doing well enough now.

With purpose in his movements, he shows me the ring that he's still kept, that he had intended to give me at our last meeting. It's a simple piece of jewelry, which is so very him. It doesn't even have a box in which to keep it. It's just there, resting in his palm, almost as if he's offering it now.

He doesn't have to explain what my acceptance of that small loop of metal would have meant. The ring looks luminous and yellow in the evening light. When I had seen merely the suggestion of it in December, my heart I had known what it was. I had feared it, wished it into nonexistence, for the sake of saving myself the guilt that would spawn from knowing what possibility had been erased for us.

Beck closes his hand around the ring. As he stands there, staring me down, I can't save myself from the anguished thoughts of how I've even ruined a potential future, one that now has no chance to exist. It's an ugly feeling.

"She'll be a lucky girl, the one who will get to wear that ring." I say, and I mean every word. "I hope she's good for you…better for you."

I say it with bitter acceptance, because I'm so sure there's no chance that we can make it to that point again. The point where he would ask me if I'll wear his ring, if I'll be his forever. I would say yes in a heartbeat, in the most infinite fraction of a heartbeat.


	8. A Promise

"Stop it," he says suddenly, angrily. "Just stop it Jade. You talk like you're this horrible person who doesn't deserve another chance, all because you got scared and broke up with me. Yeah it hurt like hell, and yeah I was pissed off, but only because I loved you so much, and didn't understand what you were doing. Maybe it was wrong of you to break things off, but it's worse of you to assume that I could ever hate you."

He doesn't hate me. It's hard for me to imagine, considering my feelings toward myself nowadays. Hearing it from his own mouth is the only thing that makes me believe it's true.

He rushes furiously onward. "I know you don't want to walk away tonight, and I don't want to see you go either. It's driving me insane. You can stop beating yourself up, and I can stop being frustrated with the fact that no matter what happened, I'm one hundred percent sure that I could never find someone else. Because…it's only you, it's always been you."

I'm shivering and crying so much that I can't speak. I'm not sure where it's heading, but it can't be worse than where we are. He moves toward me quickly – cue heart attack – and before I can ask what he's doing, he takes off his already unbuttoned flannel shirt, and drapes it around my shoulders. His touch is electrifyingly familiar. He runs his hand under my hair, freeing the bottom of it from under the shirt's collar, and though he's tearful too, he actually smiles.

Beck takes a deep breath. "I messed up too, Jade," he says in a husky voice, "I never should have made you feel so alone." He takes my hands, which are pulled up under my chin in a lame attempt to keep them warm.

"The good news," he continues, "is that I think we can both do better this time. We can fix this."

'This time', he said. This time.

"Please," is all I can choke, so overwhelmed and drained by the mixture of emotions coursing their way through my body.

He presses something small and hard into my palm, and he squeezes my hand closed around it.

Opening my fist, I look down at the band, and my eyes go wide with realization. "But…Beck?"

"You know a ring is a symbol of eternity. It's a promise." He says slowly, taking the ring from my hand and sliding it ever-so-gently onto my finger. "Does that help you to believe me when I say that I'm not going anywhere?"

I throw myself at him, squeezing him tighter than I ever have before. Belief and trust restored, fears and reservations obliterated. No regrets, only lessons learned. Maybe we won't live happily ever after, but it's worth a try, isn't it? It's true, we're pretty far from perfect, but we'll sure as hell do what we can to make things work.

(The End.)


End file.
